Meaning & readings
power, strength, strong, strain, bear up, exert
On’yomi リョク、リキ、リイ
Kun’yomi ちから
Nanori じから、つとむ
Origin
This character is a simple picture of a human arm or muscle, shown with a bend to suggest flexing or exertion. The two strokes represent the upper and lower parts of the arm, with the angle between them conveying the idea of strength or effort. Over time, the shape became more stylized, but the basic visual idea stayed the same: a flexed limb equals power and strength. That is why this character, which literally depicts a muscle at work, came to mean strength and the effort required to bear or exert force.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (力).
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 2
- Kangxi radical
- 19
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #62 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+0529B